Likes2Read wrote: Also... if you think the older generations NOW are having culture shock when the new generations come in, grow up, and take over, imagine the shock-after-shock-after-shock that the people would have who have lived for thousands and thousands of years. Are we ready for that?

Wow that brings up an interesting point. Haha! It makes me wonder if one of the side effects of our shorter life span is rapid cultural and technological changes. It seems like at least culturally things would not be changing so rapidly if people from 100 or 200 years ago were still around and influential. And it follows that another side effect of the immediacy of our lives is a disconnection from nature and spirits and even our higher selves: less opportunity to disconnect from work, media, electronics, planning for retirement, etc. If I knew that I'd have an extra hundred years I'd feel better about blowing a good amount of time getting off the grid and exploring the world. Think of all the ways you could develop yourself if you had even double your current lifespan.

Aeryn wrote: And, there is also the theory put forth by Zechariah Sitchin, through decoding ancient Sumerian writings, that the Anunnaki came to Earth during the time of the Neanderthal to mine gold (which was being rapidly depleted from the atmosphere of their planet). According to Sitchin, genetic manipulation was done, combining their DNA with that of the Neanderthal to rapidly advance primitive man into the more modern Homo Sapiens in order to better mine the gold.

If that were the case, then perhaps the difference in atmospheres on Earth and the Anunnaki's home planet might have led to much shorter life expectancies.

Where do you think the gold from the World Trade Center went? It's all gone.

suga wrote: There was a study to test changes in atmospheric pressure to see if things would grow into giants. It proved that it was possible atmospheric pressure did in fact create giants such as what we believe to be nephilims.

It is true that good oxygen and pressure can make things bigger. I.E. Dinosaurs.
It could not only be that for the nephilim. They where to big compared to the other people. They eat everything.
This seems to be one of the nephilim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncuSMhZ1-Hs

There is a theory, that aging is a result of a disease process.
Essentially, the bacteria and virus's damage our system over time, and make us age. As well as the thought that existing bacteria/virus's make us age.
Another theory is, that our DNA is programmed to age. At a certain point, we stop producing new cels as fast. And we slowly get farther behind. That if somehow we could reprogram the DNA so our system worked like it did when we where young we would live much much longer. Some thought pattern on this, is that if we did, we would likely slowly grow taller with time. You are still growing and maturing all the way up to age 25. And you might need to be growing (however slowly) to outpace the rate of cellular death. Actually, one of the concepts for doing this, is to create a virus to essentially invade our system and reprogram our DNA.
The question is, if our DNA gets reprogrammed, how much of who we are will change? Also, who would you trust to be responsible to reprogram you?
Finally, if we found ourselves living 200+ years, how would that impact the earth, and even economies?
Technically, longer lived beings, should reproduce less often.

Back in the 1930, the average life expectancy was a little less than 60 years.
By 1960, the average life expectancy was just under 70 years.
By 1990 it was just over 75 years.
As of 2011, life expectancy is 78.7 years.
add to that, the fastest growing age segment is people over 100 years old.
Most of that can be attributed to better nutrition and medical care.
I would imagine, better education impacts that as well.

This is an interesting theory, if we assume living so long is a good thing.

Keldrin wrote:Back in the 1930, the average life expectancy was a little less than 60 years.
By 1960, the average life expectancy was just under 70 years.
By 1990 it was just over 75 years.
As of 2011, life expectancy is 78.7 years.
add to that, the fastest growing age segment is people over 100 years old.
Most of that can be attributed to better nutrition and medical care.
I would imagine, better education impacts that as well.

I think just the development of antibiotics and vaccnations alone will have bumped up the average lifespan, since some diseases that used to kill people have been nearly stamped out. For example, during the Great Depression, my grandfather's mother and sister died of tuberculosis, something that is nearly unheard of in developed countries today. But in the years since then, policies were introduced to test herds of cattle and cull the animals who were carriers of the disease, and more effective treatments were developed for the people who did contract the disease. TB is not gone from the earth, unfortunately, but it isn't the scourge it once was. That's a big step forward. And there've been a lot of other giant steps forward that have helped people survive measurably longer than they might have done in prior generations.

Keldrin wrote:Back in the 1930, the average life expectancy was a little less than 60 years.
By 1960, the average life expectancy was just under 70 years.
By 1990 it was just over 75 years.
As of 2011, life expectancy is 78.7 years.
add to that, the fastest growing age segment is people over 100 years old.
Most of that can be attributed to better nutrition and medical care.
I would imagine, better education impacts that as well.

Yes because the mind must be fed as well. Many people go on mental diets or "fasts" in their teens and never return to using thought - a lot.

pure rain, pure food, no pollution. Is there any wonder what we breathe and put into our bodies is completely different from the past inhabitants

Thinking over this...very interesting discussion.